


You Can Stay

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Support, Feelings, Happy Ending, Love, M/M, Overdose, Prescription Drug Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Ultimates: Armor Wars, complicated feelings, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 02:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Tony dumped the box on his coffee table, the lid now safely closed. "Thanks for the save," he muttered at it. The world had the softened edges that alcohol gave it, but it wasn't gentle this time, like it usually was, it was numb.He couldn't even summon the pain to feel hurt about Justine. It wasn't like it was a surprise. No one ever wanted to be with him for himself. No one juststayed.That, apparently, was asking too much of the universe.





	You Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> This is set immediately after Ultimates: Armor Wars. There are a lot of references to things that happen in ults, but I've been told by non-ults readers that you don't need to get those references to follow the story.
> 
> It's in the tags, but: cw for all things pertaining to suicide - suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide etc. including another character not handling those events well or with understanding. It's angst with a happy (or at least positive) ending, so there are some bumps along the way. If you want any details, pm me off-anon on tumblr, msg me on pf, or pm on discord.
> 
> Thanks to SirSapling for brainstorming help, ashes0909 for being ases0909, and S for title help and making me actually post the damn thing! <3

Tony dumped the box on his coffee table, the lid now safely closed. "Thanks for the save," he muttered at it. The world had the softened edges that alcohol gave it, but it wasn't gentle this time, like it usually was, it was numb.

He couldn't even summon the pain to feel hurt about Justine. It wasn't like it was a surprise. No one ever wanted to be with him for himself. No one just  _ stayed.  _ That, apparently, was asking too much of the universe. 

He stood there and stared at the sealed box, crammed full of his mortality. No one stayed, why should he? And he… decided. He made a choice, and that was it.

He pulled out his phone and brought up a few apps: the cleaners, the food delivery. He cancelled everything he had booked to come to the apartment in the next week then turned off his security system and poured a drink. He downed it in one and poured another. A double.

It was as good a time as any. 

He took his drink into the bathroom, steps sure and steady despite the booze flooding his veins, and took an orange bottle out of the medicine cabinet. It rattled nicely - it wasn't full, but it'd be enough. He tipped the whole thing in his mouth and took pull after pull of his scotch until they were all gone. Tony set the bottle back on the bathroom counter and went back out to the living room.

His drink was gone, but he was too tired to fill it again, so he set the empty glass down and sunk into the couch cushions. He turned the TV on, switching away from the news to find something else, anything else. There was some soap opera on, probably one of the ones Jan always mocked Steve for liking. Tony stopped clicking channels and stared at the talking heads as the melodramatic music ebbed and flowed. 

The full-body hum of euphoria hit, and he waited to pass out.

**

Steve grumbled his way up the stairs of Tony's building, clutching the manila envelope hard enough to dent. Since when was he Fury's errand boy? But here he was, delivering mail like a courier because he was the only one with security clearance high enough to handle it. And Tony refused to come in and get it himself. 

Steve found Tony's door and knocked. He waited, but there wasn't a sound from inside the apartment, except, maybe, it sounded like the TV might be on.

Steve knocked again, harder, then checked his phone. He'd texted to say he was coming over with the package, but there was still no answer from Tony. It wasn't like Tony to be hard to reach, marinated in technology as he was, but if he was out on a date or something, he might ignore Steve's texts and calls on purpose. Well, Steve had only said he'd hand deliver the file to Tony's place, not that he'd put it straight in Tony's hand himself. 

Steve tried to push the folder under the door, but it wouldn't fit. He grumbled at it for a moment, shoving and twisting, but there were too many pages tucked inside. So now, he was faced with sliding the damn thing under sheet by sheet - and it was somewhat appealing to imagine Tony trying to piece it all back together - or letting himself in. He had a code to the keypad on Tony's door; Tony had given it to him shockingly early on, but he'd never had occasion to use it.

With Tony out, however, and the file too bulky for the door, Steve really had no choice. It was that, or keep pestering Tony until he got an answer, then arrange to come back another day, and he'd already put more effort into this than it was worth.

Steve punched the code into the pad and heard the lock whir open. He knocked again, just in case, then peeked around the door.

The lights were on, as was the TV, but thankfully there were no thumps and giggles coming from the bedroom, which was a relief. Steve stepped inside and closed the door behind him, moving to put the folder on the dining room table, but a shoe hanging over the arm of the sofa stopped him. Not just a shoe, a foot. Tony was passed out on the couch, an empty tumbler sitting on top of a large, metal box on the coffee table. Drunk, again.

Steve walked over to him and sighed down at his rumpled suit and sprawled form. However much he drank, it must have been a lot to knock him out so completely that Steve's knocking didn't even earn a stir. Feeling a rush of altruism, Steve tossed the folder on the coffee table then grabbed Tony's glass and went into the bathroom to rinse it out and refill it with water. Maybe he'd even put the aspirin nearby to ease Tony's waking. Even an alcoholic like Tony would surely feel it, waking up after what he'd clearly put himself through.

But as Steve turned on the tap, he fully processed that what was on the counter of Tony's bathroom was an empty, orange prescription bottle, the cap sitting next to it, and an alarm in his head started blaring. He left the tap running and traded the cup for the bottle, turning it around to read the label. 

Oxycodone. 

Steve read the dates and the dosage and his feet were moving before he realized he'd asked them to. "Tony?" He fell to his knees next to the couch and grabbed Tony's shoulder. His body was limp, mouth slack with a trail of drool stretching to the pillow. "Tony!" He shook him even as he was pulling his phone out of his pocket. He dialled 9-1-1.

"Emergency services. Do you require police, fire, or ambulance?"

"Ambulance."

"Please state the nature of your emergency."

"I think my friend took an overdose of oxycodone." Steve glanced at the wet ring where the glass had sat. "Probably with alcohol. He's unconscious."

"I've dispatched an ambulance to thirty-nine Fairview Streer, is that correct?"

"Yes, ma'am. The Penthouse."

"Okay. They're on their way, but I'm going to ask you some more questions so they can work as quickly as possible when they get there."

"Alright."

"He's unconscious?"

"Yes. He's not - not breathi- wait." Steve rested his hand lightly on Tony's chest. "He _ is  _ breathing but very shallowly."

"Is his breathing obstructed?"

"No."

"Has he vomited?"

"No." Steve curled his fingers around Tony's wrist and found a bare, broken pulse that made him want to scream at the woman on the phone to hurry already. 

"How much did he take?"

"I'm not sure, but based on the label, he should have had 900 mg total left, and it's empty now. He's an alcoholic, and I don't know how much of this stuff he normally takes." Steve swallowed. "I thought he was in remission," he added stupidly. 

"Did he take anything else?"

"Almost certainly a lot of alcohol. I don't know about anything else. The oxycodone was the only bottle I found. I wasn't here."

"Okay. Can the EMTs get in the building?"

Steve scrambled around in Tony's pockets for his phone. "There's - there's a button. Hold on." Either Tony had no security on his phone, or it somehow knew it was Steve holding it. He swiped it open and reached for the app button then paused. The screen was open to the program Tony used to order all his food and booze to be delivered. It was set to the bookings screen, and Tony had cancelled three deliveries. 

Steve closed that app and the next one behind it was for the cleaning service. Also cancelled. The last was Tony's security system. A large green button asked Steve if he wanted to "Arm." He almost dropped the phone. This hadn't been an accident. Tony hadn't gotten so drunk that he miscounted his cancer meds. He'd planned this. He'd set it up so no one would find him, maybe for days.

Tony wanted to die. Alone.

"Sir?"

"I - sorry. Sorry. I'll - there's a button. I can buzz them in." Steve flicked through the security panel until he found the front door buzzer. "I'm ready. I can't - I can't leave him. I'll buzz them in."

"Okay. That's okay. Can you make sure the apartment door is unlocked?"

They were taking too long. Steve huffed with frustration then dropped Tony's wrist long enough to go to the door and wrench it open. He was jamming a plant pot in front of it to hold it open when Tony's phone buzzed with the front door intercom. He hit the entry button, and he was just settling by Tony's side again when a team of four EMTs breezed through the door, bags and a stretcher in tow. 

They guided Steve firmly out of the way, shoved the coffee table against the wall and moved Tony to the floor. They moved like a troupe of perfectly choreographed dancers, one placing a mask on his face while another took his vitals and a third prepared a syringe, pulling fluid from a bottle. Steve backed up until he hit the wall, terrified that he'd get his bulk in the way and prevent them from doing what they needed to. 

One of them asked him a few of the same questions he'd been asked on the phone - he realized he was still holding his own phone as well as Tony's, and he didn't know if the dispatcher was still on the line - and he answered again. He didn't know how much he'd taken. He didn't know how much he drank. He gave them the bottle. 

He was useless.

They bustled for a while, throwing around words Steve didn't understand, then gave Tony the injection they'd prepared and moved him up onto a stretcher which they wheeled out of the apartment.  

One stayed as they rumbled off towards the elevator. "Are you family?" she asked.

"I - no." Though maybe he was the closest thing Tony had left. 

"You should call his family. Tell them he's going to Mount Sinai."

"Is he going to be okay?" Steve asked.

Her lips thinned. "We don't know yet. He's alive. There could be brain damage if he's been out for a while. I'm sorry, but I really can't say anything except to next of kin or medical proxy."

"Right."

"You can call the hospital tomorrow." She handed him a card.

"Right."

She was gone.

Steve stared at the suddenly empty hallway. The plant was still blocking the door, and Steve walked to it on autopilot, tugging it out and putting it back where it had come from. It was dry as a bone, so Steve filled a glass - a different glass - in the kitchen and poured it on the parched soil. 

They'd taken the empty prescription bottle, but Steve left the other glass in the bathroom. He sat on Tony's couch, still warm from where Tony had been lying and stared blankly. The TV was still on, muttering some commercial Steve couldn't process. He reached out and picked up the seamless, metal box sitting on the coffee table. He had no idea what it was. It was heavy, and despite the rest of Tony's technology, it didn't open for him. He set it back down, wondering if it had something to do with what Tony had done. 

He should go home. Call the hospital tomorrow. There wasn't anything else he could do here, and Tony wouldn't want him to stay.

But Tony had tried to kill himself. 

Steve didn't really feel inclined to give him what he wanted right now.

**

Steve woke to the sound of the keypad lock disengaging. He sat upright on the couch and watched the door swing open, blinking his eyes into the lights that were still on.

"Tony -"

Tony looked horrible. He had dark circles under his eyes. He was still wearing the suit Steve had found him in, wrinkled and mussed, the tie hooked around his neck. He blinked at Steve in clear surprise. '"What are you doing here?"

"What am  _ I  _ doing here? You almost died! How did they release you already?" Steve couldn't help but consider that he might be dreaming. Or hallucinating.

"I'm Tony Stark," Tony growled. "If I don't want to be kept, they aren't keeping me."

"So they didn't want to discharge you?"

"I'm fine." Tony stalked past Steve, shedding pieces of his suit as he went, and disappeared, half-naked, into his bedroom. He reappeared only a few moments later, in nothing but a robe. He wrapped one arm around his middle, and Steve could see he was shivering.

"Tony -" But before Steve could get the rest of his concern out, Tony rolled his eyes, and something in Steve broke. "Could you -"

Tony cut him off. "Why are you here? Did Fury send you to check up on me? Because I -"

"What? No." Steve stood from the couch and scrubbed a hand through his hair. Why  _ was  _ he here? "I was the one who found you."

Tony stilled, the light in his eyes going flat. "Oh."

"I came by last night to -" Steve waved a hand vaguely towards the envelope that was still on the kitchen table "- drop something off. And I found you. I called 9-1-1 and they took you away and they wouldn't tell me anything because I'm not family." Realization hit Steve like a truck. "Oh shit. They told me to call your family and I didn't even think of Gregory."

Tony blanched. "Thank god you didn't." His scarily-blank eyes flashed for a moment. "Who did you tell?"

"No one. I - I couldn't think of anyone to tell. I didn't even know if you were okay or not."

"Don't worry, Cap. I'm like a cat. Apparently."

"Did it have something to do with that box?" Steve gestured towards it, and Tony chuckled, like that thought was funny.

"There's nothing important in the box, Steve. I just took too much. It happens."

"I found your phone. I had to buzz the EMTs in. I know you did it on purpose."

Tony sighed with his whole body and shuffled off towards the window. Fear gripped Steve's heart for a moment, not knowing how he could stop him from going to the wet bar, but he turned instead and poured a glass of water in the kitchen. "So what?" He pulled a box of crackers out of a cupboard and tucked the whole thing under his arm.

"What do you mean 'so what?' Of all the selfish shit you've pulled this is -"

"Steve." Tony's voice was cool and steady, but there was a sharp edge to it. "What do you want?"

But Steve barreled right over the question. "There are people who rely on you, Tony, on Iron Man. And what? You were just going to let them all down? How could you do that to yourself?" Steve could feel the irritation shift into anger, shift into rage, but he couldn't tamp it down now that it was rolling steadily downhill. "What in god's name were you  _ thinking?" _

Tony stared at him, looking absolutely wretched with his water and his crackers, dark circles like bruises over his cheekbones, his frame still shaking slightly. "I guess I wasn't," he said flatly, a sarcastic twist making Steve flinch. "Now if you don't mind, it's hard to properly enjoy my opioid withdrawal headache with your self-righteousness filling up the room, so maybe you could go do your yelling in the hall."

Tony slumped down on the same couch  _ he'd nearly died on  _ and turned on the TV. 

Steve turned and walked out.

**

It was two weeks before Steve spoke to Tony again, and the whole time, every time his phone rang, he thought it would be someone telling him Tony had tried again and succeeded. It was like an anvil hanging over his head, waiting to drop. But as much as that made his stomach churn, he couldn't face going back over or even calling him himself. 

But then things started to shift. Tony took over the Ultimates, peeling them away from Fury and funding them himself. They started meeting at his apartment. Steve spent the first several minutes of each meeting staring at the couch and imagining Tony's prone body sprawled across it. But the more Steve saw him, alive and seemingly happy, the more those memories drifted away.

It was a fluke, he told himself, a one-off. Tony had a bad night and he made a bad decision, and he regretted it. Everything was fine now.

**

A woman had died. 

They all made excuses for each other, tried to focus on what had gone right, but the truth was, a woman had died before they could save her, and no one felt okay about it. Steve watched tension twist through Tony's shoulders as he stepped out of the armour, eye lingering on the dark storm that rolled in behind his eyes. 

They didn't meet after, there was no point in debrief with everyone exhausted and dirty and angry, but Steve felt untethered and off-kilter, watching his team split up to nurse their wounds in private after a mission gone wrong. It was half his fault, he knew that. Tony had offered his expansive penthouse home to anyone who wanted to move in with him, but Steve had declined. Maybe if he'd set an example, the others would have followed.

For the first time, he wished he'd said yes, only because he couldn't settle tonight. He fiddled with his phone when he came out of the shower, unable to put it down, but not knowing why. He kept startling at every noise, expecting it to ring.

Two hours and no ringing, he couldn't sit and wait anymore. A harsh vision of a couch with a limp leg flopped over the end had him up on his feet, jacket on, and powering across the city.

When he reached Tony's door, Steve hesitated. He had no reason to be here, besides what he assumed would be all too obvious. He didn't understand why Tony had done what he'd done, but he was sure that showing him he didn't trust him to be left alone would only damage the tentative friendship they'd managed to build.

But he also couldn't go back home without checking. He'd rather have Tony alive and mad at him…

He knocked.

When a few seconds past without an answer, adrenaline flushed Steve's veins and he resisted the urge to slam his shoulder into the door, though only barely. "Tony?" he called. He knocked again.

The door wrenched open, and Tony appeared in a cloud of steam and vodka, a towel wrapped too-loosely around his hips. Steve jerked his eyes up and away from the trail of dark hair that disappeared down the vee of Tony's hip bones.

"Steve?" Tony blinked at him, and all possible excuses for his presence evaporated out of Steve's mind. 

"Did I leave my phone here?" Steve blurted out, feeling heat creep up the back of his spine. He hoped the outline of his phone wasn't obvious in the bottom of his jacket pocket.

Tony blinked at him. "What?"

"Sorry. I can't find my phone so I couldn't call and warn you. I -" Steve gestured helplessly to Tony's lack of clothes.

Tony smirked down at himself then shifted slightly, the towel slipping further down his hip as he cocked it. "If you wanted to catch me in flagrante, I'm afraid you're about an hour too early." He winked. "Though don't let it be said Tony Stark doesn't always put on a good show." He shifted again and more skin peeked out.

Steve glowered at him. "Very funny. I'm sorry to bother you. I just wanted to see if my phone was here."

Tony's smirk softened a little, and he tilted his head to the side, studying Steve. "Come in. I'll call you."

He opened the door and turned to walk across the room towards the coffee table where his own phone sat. Steve slipped in after him and hurriedly turned his phone off in his pocket, breathing out with relief when he felt it vibrate to let him know it was off. 

Tony picked up his phone and typed something then held it out. Steve could see the call dialling on the screen and he looked around, as if waiting for a ring to sound, but the room was silent.

"You didn't have it on vibrate, did you, darling?" Tony asked.

"Nope. Must have left it somewhere else, sorry. I'll - uh - leave you to get ready for your… friend."

Tony laughed. "Don't rush out on my account. Lacey likes to share." Tony shuffled closer and all but purred. 

Steve shook his head. "Have a good night, Stark."

"Oh, I will."

As he walked out, Steve couldn't help but brush his eyes over the table. The metal box was long gone, and tonight there was a bottle of white wine and two glasses on coasters set out. Tony really was expecting company. It made something ease and loosen a little in Steve's chest, and as he shut the apartment door behind him, he let out a long, slow breath. 

Tony was okay. Tonight.

**

It happened twice more. They didn't talk about it. Things went badly, and Steve showed up at Tony's door with a flimsy excuse, just to make sure he was alive. Tony would pointedly mention his plans for the evening each time, occasionally in too-graphic detail, with a teasing smirk, but it was enough. Steve could go home and rest, knowing that Tony was drowning his sorrows between a Playboy bunny's legs instead of at the bottom of an orange prescription bottle. 

**

Then Tony started something with Carol, and Steve didn't know why it made him so angry. So angry he kicked Valkyrie in the stomach. So angry he nearly did the same to Zarda.

Maybe it wasn't true.

Maybe Zarda was full of it.

But if Tony had a partner, not just a one-night-stand, but a partner, then Steve didn't have to worry about him anymore, right?

Right?

**

Steve still had the kid's blood on his hands. He couldn't see it, must have washed his hands a thousand times, but he could still feel it. Dripping.

He wished he could still feel Fury choking in his grip instead.

The door pad beeped, and Steve looked up from where he was perched uncomfortably on the edge of Tony's couch. Tony appeared in the doorway and paused, eyes scraping a layer off Steve and examining what was underneath. Steve stood his ground, tensed for the fight, but Tony didn't say anything. He dropped his bag just inside the door and walked through to the bedroom. Steve heard drawers opening and closing then Tony reappeared in silky-looking pajama pants, a t-shirt, and a zippered sweatshirt. 

He plunked down on the couch next to Steve and pulled his phone out. "I'm ordering chinese food, what do you want? And if you say blood, I'm going to be very upset."

Steve tried not to stammer in surprise. "Beef and broccoli and shrimp fried rice," he rattled off. 

"Okay." Tony called a restaurant, flirted shamelessly with whoever answered the phone, and ordered four times as much food as it seemed like the two of them could eat. 

They didn't talk much. Tony picked a movie, a comedy-mystery from the sixties that had him chuckling into his martini every few minutes. Tony drank, but when the food came, he actually ate, instead of holding a container in one hand and a drink in the other and only nursing one - which Steve had seen him do with worrying frequency. They had a lot to figure out tomorrow, as a team, and Steve's stomach twisted every time he thought of the kid who'd tried to save his life. Everything was falling apart, brick by brick. He couldn't stand to let anyone else fall.

Steve picked a miniature shrimp out of the container and popped it in his mouth. He still wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't been turned out on his ass, but if Tony was feeding him and waving his chopsticks at the screen in irritation, he wasn't -

He wasn't emptying his medicine cabinet into his stomach.

Because Steve couldn't lie to himself that he was here because of the tumour or because he needed comfort after Peter. He was here because with Tony's cancer back - and his secret out to everyone - Steve once again didn't trust him not to do something stupid. And for some bizarre reason, Tony was indulging him in that, because there was no way it wasn't painfully obvious what Steve was doing by now.

Steve ratcheted down with every bite of food, and every slapstick fall on screen, until he really was watching the movie and not watching Tony out of the corner of his eye. 

When the movie was over, Tony stood with a groan, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. "I'm beat. Going to crash. That advice about not discharging yourself AMA and then rattling around in a battle-can might have some credence after all." He patted Steve's shoulder as he walked past him. "We'll get ahead of this thing tomorrow, Steve." He disappeared into the bathroom, and Steve heard the tap run then the heart-stopping  _ tink  _ of a bottle full of pills. He resisted the urge to fling himself into the room and rip the bottle out of Tony's hand. Surely he wouldn't try anything now, not with Steve here. He wouldn't do that to Steve again, would he?

Tony reappeared, two bottles in his hand. "Still a bit shaky. Can you open these for me?" He tossed them over, and Steve caught both out of the air.

Both labels had long, complicated names Steve didn't recognize. He tipped his chin towards Tony in what he hoped was an unaccusing question as he twisted both lids off.

"Chemo. Nasty stuff. Don't touch it with your bare skin, though I suppose the serum probably protects you from any ill-effects." Tony held out a hand lined with a tissue. "One of each please." 

Steve doled them out then capped the bottles again. Tony tossed them back and took the last two swigs of his drink, and Steve wondered at the idea that something he wasn't safe to touch was going into Tony's body. He got the twitching urge to punch something, but cancer wouldn't give him that opportunity. Tony, however, had given him the opportunity to see what he was taking. It was quiet assurance, Steve could see that. The lids were easy to pop off, and Tony wasn't shaking anymore.

"Tony are you -?" Steve cut himself off, but to his surprise, Tony smiled.

"I'm fine, darling. Beat it once, I'll beat it again." He turned away and yawned loudly, stretching his arms over his head. "It's getting late, and the gang will be showing up bright and early tomorrow. Feel free to crash in the guest room. It should have been your room, anyway." And then he was gone.

Steve stared after him at the cracked door to Tony's master bedroom. Maybe he hadn't been needed here, but coming didn't feel like it had been the wrong choice to make. He sunk down onto the couch and closed his eyes. He couldn't quite bring himself to stay the night in the guest room, but he'd catch a few hours here on the couch then let himself out.

It was much more than a few hours later when he was woken to the sound of Tony puking his guts out in the bathroom.

**

Tony shouldn't have been surprised, but he was, when he walked through the door of his apartment after his brother's funeral and found Steve Rogers sitting awkwardly on his living room couch. 

It shouldn't have suddenly made him mad, this time, after all the times before, but it did.

"Been busy hiding all the sharps, Cap? Guess you'll want my shoelaces next," Tony snapped, tugging off his tie and throwing it over the back of a chair. 

There was a full beat of painful silence, and then Steve turned heavy eyes on him. "How dare you say that to me," he said, too steady and too even. Careful, controlled.

"What -?"

"I found you, Tony. I'm the one who found you, dying, on this couch right here. I thought you weren't breathing. You barely  _ were  _ breathing. I thought I was going to be the last person who knew you to touch you alive." He pushed up to his feet and stalked across the room towards Tony then turned back, fists clenched at his side, and sunk onto the couch again. "I think about it all the time," he admitted. "I think about what if the file folder had fit under the door, or what if I'd told Fury to stuff it that night? What if I'd waited to get a text back from you? What if you'd died, and I hadn't been there to save you? I think about that all the time."

Tony tried to speak but his mouth was too dry, tongue heavy. He fiddled his cufflinks off.

"I've spent this past year trying to figure out why you did it. At first I hated you - I was so mad. But then I thought, maybe I could make it make sense. But I couldn't. And I keep thinking about - what if I'd reached out and rolled you over and you hadn't been breathing at all? What if I'd been a few hours later - stopped for dinner or took another phone call. I would have found you here, cold and still. You - you wanted to do that to yourself, and now I  _ never know  _ when it might happen again. What if one morning you wake up and decide to end it again, Tony, and  _ I'm not here?  _ Cause I won't know to be here. If something happens, I can - but if I don't know..." He was almost babbling now, the words stumbling out half on top of each other, and his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. 

Captain America was having a panic attack in Tony's living room.

Tony set his cufflinks down and crossed the room to stand beside Steve. He landed his hand on the back of Steve's neck, chilled fingers curling automatically into the warmth they found under the edge of his shirt collar. "I'm sorry," he said, and Steve broke.

He dropped his face into his hands and choked, a broken sob slipping out with a gasp of air. Tony's hand tightened on the back of his neck, at a loss for what to do, what to say. 

"It keeps happening…" Steve's voice dropped soft and low. "Battle, I guess I can get. A fellow soldier falling. Some part of me is always expecting that. But I don't even know if I'm aging the same as everyone else. I could outlive you, outlive you all. I'll certainly outlive Gail and Bucky. And you survived  _ cancer.  _ You fought it. And then…"

And then the world had sought fit to punish him over and over for not giving in and giving up when it had asked it of him. Beat him down, broke his heart, used him, abused him, then gave him his cancer back when nothing else worked. But he was still here. And the flame of  _ fight  _ that had won him the battle the first time was flickering back to life. Steve kept breathing oxygen onto the weak flame, and Tony kept letting him.

"I don't understand why you did it," Steve managed to get out, unable to hide his tears now. He pressed both hands over his face, but Tony felt the hitch of his breathing under his hand. Steve was crying, for him.

"I don't know if it's something I can explain," Tony said, as softly as he could. He settled on the couch beside Steve's hunched form with a shaky sigh, not removing his hand from Steve's neck. "I just didn't want to be alive anymore. I wanted it to be over - everything. I couldn't bear the thought of waking up and starting yet again. Not with all the blood on my hands, all the cracks in my heart, the mass in my brain. Sometimes it's too much, Steve."

Steve sniffed sharply and rubbed his palm across his cheek. He looked up but didn't meet Tony's eye. "What about right now?"

"Right now… right now everything is awful, but I'm okay with being alive. Okay?"

"Okay."

Steve was quiet for a moment. Then, "Can I - can I ask you that? You know, sometimes. I - I -" he stammered out, and Tony put him out of his misery.

"Yeah. Yeah of course. You can ask me that. And if I say no -?"

"I'll be here."

"Thank you." Tony slid his finger around to cup Steve's jaw. "Really. Thank you. You saved my life, and as much as I didn't want it at the time, that means that everyone I've saved since then, that - that's thanks to you too. So even if I can't always be grateful for the first, I love you for the second."

Steve's eyes snapped up, widening for a moment as his lips parted and formed a soundless word Tony didn't catch. He cleared his throat. "I wish I could fix it."

"I'm sorry." Tony stroked his thumb across Steve's cheek, catching an errant tear and wicking it away. "I'm sorry, Steve. Really, I am. I'm sorry I put you through that. I'm sorry for all of it." Impulsively, Tony leaned forward and pressed his lips against Steve's. It was soft and short, just a chaste peck, but he still caught the warmth from Steve's lips, still tasted the salt from his tears when he pulled back and licked the kiss away. 

And Steve watched the track of his tongue. Then he reached out, wrapped his arms around Tony's waist and pull him up against his chest, burrowing down into his neck, breath hot against the edge of Tony's shirt collar. 

Being hugged by Steve was like being wrapped in a huge, heavy blanket, straight out of the dryer. Tony snuggled down into his hold, refusing to be released, even when Steve relaxed, and eventually the two of them tipped backwards onto the couch, wound together. 

"I'm sorry," Steve said roughly. "I came here for you. I'm sorry about your brother. That's not how I wanted that to end."

"We weren't close." But the pain digging into his side at the reminder was dangerously close to his heart.

"It doesn't matter. He was your brother, your twin. It still hurts."

Tony managed a nod.

"How can I help?"

A rush of air leaked out of Tony's chest, some Frankensteinian combination of a sigh, a laugh, and a sob. "You don't have to do -"

"How can I help?" Steve said more firmly, pressing his face to Tony's hair in what might have been a kiss. 

Tony knew the answer. "You can stay."

Steve nodded, firmly, once, like he was receiving orders, and it brought a soft smile to Tony's lips. Somehow, for Steve, it was that easy. "For as long as you want me," Steve said, rather pointedly leaving off the "to."

Tony didn't need to know the answer to that one, but he did. "Forever," he mumbled against Steve's chest, sleep already pulling him out of a tangle of confused grief and into soft, dream-clouds. "Stay forever."

Steve's arms tightened around him.


End file.
